Kentucky should retire Mike Casey’s jersey next

Now that Kentucky has finally done the right thing and retired Mike Pratt’s jersey who should be the next former Wildcat to have his jersey hanging in Rupp Arena? A player is eligible to have a jersey retired five years after induction into the UK Hall of Fame and different groups decide who goes into the Hall of Fame and who has a jersey retired.

But if you asked me, the next priority should be another one of Pratt’s teammates, Mike Casey. Another teammate, Dan Issel, already has a jersey hanging in Rupp but Casey’s jersey should be up there with his teammates Pratt and Issel and it should be an easy choice.

For those who can remember, Casey was the best player among the Issel-Pratt-Casey trio when they were sophomores. He averaged 20 points per game while Issel, UK’s all-time leading scorer, averaged 16 and Pratt 14 that season. The next year Issel averaged 27 points but Casey put up 19 points per game.

Casey did not get to play with Issel and Pratt during the 1969-70 season, their senior year, because of injuries he suffered in a car accident. He came back for another year but was not nearly the same player he was before the injury.  However, he still managed to average 17 points per game.

Casey is UK’s 14th all-time leading scorer with 1,535 points and 37th in rebounds with 558 and 32nd in assists with 260. The 18.7 points per game he averaged for his career ranks ninth in UK history, one-tenth of a point below Jamal Mashburn. He also led the Wildcats in free throw shooting in 1968 at 82.3 percent and in assists in 1969 with 4.6 per game. Kentucky’s record during Casey’s three years at UK was 67-16.

“Casey was the best money player I ever coached. When there was money on the table, you wanted Mike Casey to have the ball in his hands,” former Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp said about his star player.

Those are Hall of Fame and jersey retirement numbers and it should be easy for those at UK to see that.

Terry Hall was Casey’s high school teammate at Shelby County when the team won the state championship in 1966 and a long-time friend of Casey’s. He recently wrote UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart asking for consideration for Casey’s jersey to be retired.

“The fact the Pratt family invited the Casey family to be with them (at Pratt’s jersey ceremony) is testimony to me they were aware of Mike’s wish (about Casey’s jersey being retired). I think if you look at what he did at UK you’ll agree with me,” Hall wrote.

“If I remember correctly Casey is still the second highest scoring guard in UK annals at 18.7 points per game, second only to Louie Dampier’s 19.7. I go back to the Fiddlin’ Five and then Cotton Nash and would still put him on my top 15 all-time (at least among four-year players) players at UK.”

So would I and my guess is so would any other UK fan who ever saw Casey play.